Survey of Reverse Logistics Practices The Case of Portugal

Reverse Logistics (RL) has gained substantial relevance in the field of supply chain management, mainly because RL combines environmental, economic and social factors. Although there are studies on RL practices, none of these studies are related to the Portuguese case. Therefore, a survey was conducted in Portugal to fill this gap. This study was applied to a group of Portuguese companies of four industrial sectors. These four sectors are highly diversified, regarding the way RL is managed. The results demonstrate that companies consider the management of RL important. The most common practice used is the proper disposal of returned products. The companies mainly adopt RL due to the benefits associated with the improvement of customer satisfaction and the reduction in logistics costs. The biggest barrier to the implementation of RL is a lack of strategic planning by the companies on handling returned products. The main reason affecting the performance of RL activities is the lack of quality of the returned product. The study also allowed to estimate the volume of returned products and the costs of RL.